


it's all in your head

by ameliafuckingshepherd



Series: me taking out my problems on the avengers [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Anorexia, Anxiety, Avengers Family, Avengers Feels, Canon Disabled Character, Canonical Character Death, Deaf Clint Barton, Depression, Disability, Eating Disorders, Flashbacks, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Marvel Universe, Mental Health Issues, Murder, No Plot/Plotless, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Drugs, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Trauma, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 11:36:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20114470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliafuckingshepherd/pseuds/ameliafuckingshepherd
Summary: the very real ways in which trauma has affected the team because even superheroes struggle.





	it's all in your head

**Author's Note:**

> this is messy. its bad. it takes place all over the mcu timeline and i had legit no plan for this but it's been sitting around forever so im finally gonna post it. it involves all of my issues and traumas and shit like that. you know, the fun stuff.

Steve Rogers didn’t know what it was like to have nothing. Even when he was starving and beaten to a pulp in brooklyn, he had something. He had Bucky. Every time Steve fell down, Bucky was there to help him back up.

And then the war happened. And everything changed. And Bucky fell off the train into a snowy abyss, and Steve couldn’t save him. Their entire life, Bucky had always been saving Steve. But when Bucky needed him, Steve couldn’t help.he let bucky die. He was a poor excuse for a friend and soldier.

After a long time, Steve made peace with this. Bucky was gone. There was nothing anyone could do. His best friend was dead. Wiped away. Destroyed. But even when Steve thought Bucky was dead, some part of him still lived. No one is ever truly gone.

Finding out that Bucky, his Bucky, was an assassin for Hydra was so, so much worse. He looked like Bucky. Sounded like Bucky. Walked like Bucky. But he wasn't Bucky. He was an evil twin, and Steve’s best friend was buried somewhere deep, deep down, far out of Steve’s reach. 

There was an endless, painful, burning pit in his chest. It pulled the color from his cheeks and the life from his eyes, and in return, it spit out a fog of sadness. Cuts appeared on his arms, turned to scars like summer turned to fall. They comforted him. They helped him. It hurt, but deep down he knew he deserved the pain.

The Winter Soldier was just a painful reminder of everything Steve had done wrong, and he couldn’t take it anymore. He was drowning.

Despite being surrounded by people every second of every day, Steve Rogers had never been more alone in his life. 

It wasn’t like Tony Stark liked getting blackout, wasted. throwing up on the bathroom floor drunk every day. It made Pepper cry (when she thought Tony wasn’t watching, but Tony was always watching). It made Rhodey and Happy exchange those awful ‘should we do something?’ looks with each other whenever Tony was around. 

Maybe if he drank more, he would forget who he was. If he forgot who he was for long enough, he might just fade away. It’s not like he liked being alive. 

So much loss and anger that was left unresolved that he couldn’t bear to live with it. His life took on a gray tinge. Food seemed unappealing, and the weight dropped off. The scent of liquor never left his skin, like the countless battle scars and bruises. 

He couldn't stop. he needed this to live, even if it broke apart his family.his team. Even if it meant the end of Stark Industries.

But he didn’t care. 

Even if it killed him, he wouldn’t give it up.

Besides, things would be simpler for everyone if he was gone. 

Natasha Romanoff needed control to live like she needed air to breathe. Her life changed every day, black waves on a beach of red sand. 

Her eating disorder had been the only constant in her life for twenty five years. World falling apart? Restrict. Aliens attacking? Restrict. Break down and eat something? Throw it up. There was nothing else to it. 

She had to be Perfect All The Time. her body had to be perfect. Her hair had to be perfect. What she was had to be perfect. She had to be perfect, because if she wasn't, cracks would start to form. They’d spread through her like poison, they’d break her apart. She would shatter, and everyone would know that Natasha Romanoff was not perfect. 

She needed control to live like she needed air to breathe. And that was fine. That was healthy.

Natasha Romanoff was fine (see her cry over a muffin because it smelled so good she thought she might break and eat it no matter what her disorder says), she was doing fantastic (see her run five miles on the treadmill every day to burn away the calories she didn’t eat until she almost collapsed, legs numb, brain number), she was better than she’d ever been before (see her covered in vomit, getting in the shower with a tear streaked face and coming out like nothing was wrong).

Natasha Romanoff was Almost Perfect in Almost Every Way. 

If you saw her, you would hardly be able to tell that she was an inch away from falling apart. Hell, she could hardly tell, because she was just that good. 

Clint Barton lived in a different world. He nodded his head like he could understand english (like it didn’t sound like someone had regurgitated scrabble tiles in the air). He ate like a normal human from earth, slept like a normal human from earth. But he felt like a foreign object lodged in one’s skin-unwanted, bothersome, ugly.

His hearing aids grounded him most of the time. They were the bridge between Clint’s Dimension and Everyone Else’s Dimension. They were a pin-sized hole in the foot-thick glass wall that separated him from everything else. He was here, but he wasn’t really here.

He felt like a shell. He could do everything normal people did, but it all felt terribly alien and wrong.

He felt fake.

Alone.

Broken.

Clint watched and observed how the others acted and took notes. If they ate, he ate. If they slept, he slept. If they laughed, he laughed. He was a child slowly learning how to function in normal society by copying everyone else.

He knew more about the team than they knew about themselves.

He had seen Natasha stashing food in napkins when she thought no one was watching, had seen the slashes on Steve’s arms and the Alcoholics Anonymous pamphlets on Tony’s desk.

He knew. 

He watched. 

Maybe if he kept putting on this act, it would start to feel real.

What the hell else could he do?

Bruce Banner spent two years murdering people for sport, and everyone just seemed to fucking gloss over that like it was nothing.

“It was the hulk, it wasn’t you!” 

“You didn’t mean to. Just forget about it, you’ll only make yourself feel worse.” 

“If you knew what you were doing, you would have stopped, right?”

The Hulk was Bruce and Bruce was the Hulk. 

Bruce stood by and watched as his alter ego killed prisoners with no way out. He killed people who had gotten thrown on that shithole of a planet, enslaved, and then put in a ring with a monster they could never defeat. 

The odds were against them from the start. The game was rigged. 

Bruce Banner was a monster lower than dirt. He had the blood of hundreds, maybe even thousands on his hands. Every day, he remembered their bones breaking, skulls crunching beneath his fist. Every day, he reminded himself that he was worth nothing more than a fifteen years to life sentence and a charge of second-degree murder. 

Bruce Banner was a monster lower than dirt. 

He was a killer.

He was a coward.

He was nothing.

Just when Thor Odinson thought he couldn’t lose any more, he lost his home. He knew Asgard was not a place, but a People, but it still hurt.

Just when he thought he couldn’t possibly lose anymore, thought the universe couldn’t possibly fuck him over any harder than it already had, he lost his brother. For the third damn time. 

Thor had traveled the galaxy, visited more planets than he thought existed, met people with different colored skin and different eyes, and he only learned one thing: the world wasn’t fair. It was a shitty, shitty place, and if it all imploded, he wouldn’t really mind. 

What was that thing Tony always said? Part of the destination is the end? Part of the journey is the end?

Yeah, journey sounded right. Destination made no sense. A destination was, by definition, the end of a journey. 

Part of the journey was the end, and Thor didn’t like this journey very much. In fact, he wanted to take the next flight to Indonesia and live out the rest of his godly life taking care of orangutans. 

Fuck the journey.

Fuck the end.

And especially fuck whoever was taking care of the universe, because they were doing a truly horrible job.

Sam Wilson was still in the war. 

He saw the bodies, heard the gunfire, felt the blazing heat of bomb fire on his skin. He remembered walking through smoldering villages and seeing a child’s teddy bear half-burned, an abandoned laundry basket ready to be hung on the clothes line. Napalm and smoke burned his nose like he was still there. 

He shut his eyes, and he was lying on the desert ground with a broken arm and third degree burns down his leg. He opened them, and he was in his house in New York.

This all felt like a sick, cruel dream. The slightest noise or slightest prick of pain sent him spinning back to the hot desert, it painted blood on his arms and clothes, sand in his eyes. The only way he could escape was with his wings. 

He flew through the clouds, and it felt like maybe everything would be okay.

He landed, and there was a bullet in his best friend.

The sky kept him safe from all the horrors the earth held, but it’s not like he’s going to admit that to anyone. 

Sam Wilson had PTSD, and while it was nothing to be ashamed of, he wasn’t exactly ready to advertise it.

There was a reason that Bucky Barnes always wore long sleeves. 

He had hurt Steve enough. Steve didn’t need to see the remnants of Bucky’s broken, ripped to shreds, faded to black and grey soul layed across his skin. 

Steve didn’t deserve that.

Steve didn’t deserve any of this. 

Bucky rationally knew nothing he did as the Winter Soldier was his fault, but it sure as hell felt like it was. The team was civil towards him. Nice, even. But he saw the expression on Natasha’s face when he got too close. He was beyond relieved that she was able to forgive him for shooting her three times, but those scars would stay forever. She would never really forgive him, and Bucky was fine with that. He saw the glares Stark threw him, because he didn’t really try to hide his dislike. Bucky had broken apart the man’s family and paralyzed his best friend from the waist down, and that was when he was Bucky. He killed Tony’s parents, for fuck's sake.

You can’t forgive something like that. 

God, Bucky would do anything to undo his actions. The shame burned in his chest like blazing flames, eating up this throat and burning him all over. Cutting was the least he could do. He deserved to feel pain. The more he hurt, the more he could understand what he had put Steve’s friend’s through. Bucky was never going to be able to make up what he did, but he could try his hardest. 

He made cookies and ran errands for the rest of the team. He did housework and always offered to take the most dangerous jobs on missions. Bucky would happily give his life for any of them, because maybe then they’d understand how really, very sorry he was. Steve objected to this.

“You can’t beat yourself up over this, Buck. it’s not your fault.”

Bucky laughed bitterly and shook his head. “I’m glad you think that, Steve.”

And Bucky was glad. Steve didn’t deserve to carry the guilt that Bucky did.

Steve didn’t deserve any of this shit.

James Rhodes, the War Machine, was adjusting to life without the natural use of his legs. 

He hated the way people stared at him with pity filled eyes, whispering to their friends about how sorry they felt for him. 

“Pity is the sea you drown in.”

He read that in a book he found in Natasha’s study. He didn’t get it until shit really hit the fan. Rhodey couldn’t breathe. Tony tiptoed around him because he blamed himself. Steve couldn’t even be in the same room as him. The looks that Team Cap gave him were full of regret and silent apologies, and Rhodey couldn’t fucking take it anymore. 

He wasn’t broken! His legs weren't working anymore, but he could walk with the braces, and there was some really amazing research with stem cells being done. He heard about a guy who went down to this lab in Mexico paralyzed, and came back able to move his legs. Not walk, but move, feel, and Rhodey was on the waitlist for their trial. 

He just wanted to be looked at like a normal human again. The pitying glances of strangers and the handicapped plate were all too much. No, he didn’t need help loading groceries in the car. No, he didn’t get hurt in Iraq. Yes, he was a veteran, but that’s not why his legs don’t work.

James Rhodes was not broken. His legs were, but he was not. 

He just really wished everyone else would see that.

Wanda Maximoff’s very, one hundred percent dead, for sure, without question dead brother was following her around.

Pietro showed up in the bathroom mirror exactly two weeks and three days ago and he hadn’t left since. 

Wanda had looked up from washing her face and screamed bloody murder. She rubbed her eyes, but the ghost was still there. She went to sleep, and the ghost was still there. 

“You’re not Pietro,” she firmly said. 

Pietro stared back, unblinking. 

By the third day, it was starting to get creepy, so she turned to her friends for advice. 

She asked Clint, “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

He looked at her strangely. “When I was a kid, i thought there was one in my closet.”

“No, have you ever seen someone...dead?”

“What are you talkin’ about, Maximoff?”

Wanda rested her face in her hands. Why couldn’t she ever find the right words? “Pietro’s here, Clint. He’s here. I can touch him and talk to him. He’s here, but he’s dead.”

Clint put down his phone and took a step closer to Wanda. “You mean you saw a ghost?”

She sighed, exasperated. “Yes.”

“You’ve been under a lot of stress, kid. Take a few days, get some sleep. No more avenging until Piet-until your brother goes away.” 

He pulled her into a hug. Wanda closed her eyes and leaned her cheek on Clint’s shoulder. “Okay,” she murmured. 

Next, she went to see Natasha. The spy had seen a lot of crazy shit, and she out of all the Avengers would believe Wanda. 

“A ghost? Like Casper, or like the shining?”

Wanda had no idea what either of those things were. “Um, the shining maybe?” 

“Okay, is he here now?”

Wanda nodded, chin quivering. Jesus, she was not having a good day. Possibly, the apparition of her murdered brother was putting her on edge.

“Hey, malen'kaya ved'ma, take a deep breath. This job is a lot. You're not crazy, your brain is just doing what it needs to keep you sane.” Natasha had an infectious smile, and Wanda found herself reassured. She did take a deep breath, but Pietro did not leave.

That was okay. 

She was okay with that. 

Wanda Maximoff could speak to the dead, see the dead, and there was nothing wrong with it. 

Later that night, she curled in bed with Pietro, like they used to do when they were children. Wanda hoped he would stay. It took some getting used to, but she was glad to see her brother again, even if it was all in her head.

When Peter Parker was a kid, Ned’s parents took them to a haunted house. There was a room in the haunted house that closed in, walls collapsing on each other while water sloshed in fake windows. It was supposed to be like a sinking submarine. 

Peter’s life felt like that room a lot lately. 

The walls were closing in, and he was sinking deeper, deeper. 

He couldn’t breathe. 

Water filled his lungs, and Peter hyperventilated as it made its way out of his eyes and back to the earth. The walls were closing in, and there was nothing he could do about it. 

It was all too much. 

Peter went to a party on a boat featuring several kids snorting something off a table, and even more drinking out of red cups. Peter sat on the railing, feet dangling towards the water, wishing he could just fall in so this would all be over. A cup of something sickly sweet sat next to him, half-finished. When he took a sip, it burned his mouth like pepper. He coughed and spluttered, but drank some more anyway. It would take a lot more alcohol than this to get him drunk.

Peter’s chest was tight, and he wanted to yell at the wind for grazing softly across his face. Its touch was suffocating. The music shrieking from inside the cabin hurt his ears more than a broken arm. He wanted to curl up in a dark corner and put his hands over his ears.

But he did not move. 

Peter would do anything to get out of here.

he couldn’t take it anymore. 

Peter tipped over the edge. The freezing cold ocean greeted him like an old friend, and after a second, he couldn’t hear the shouts above him. The water comforted him. Strange that the only time he didn’t feel like he was drowning was when he was actually drowning. 

After a minute (maybe more, maybe less), someone pulled him out of the water. Flash hovered over him, dripping wet, a look of fear and annoyance on his face. 

“What the fuck, Parker?”

Peter didn’t have an answer to that. He coughed up some water. Everyone else was still inside. “Why...how…”

“You seemed freaked out, so I followed you.”

“Thanks, Flash,” Peter said, looking at him strangely. 

The last person he expected to save his life just did.

Peter didn’t feel so much like he was drowning anymore. Flash helped him up and tossed him a towel. 

“Don’t kill yourself, okay?”

Peter smiled wryly. “No promises.”

Flash stopped walking and looked Peter in the eye. “I’m serious.”

Peter stared back. 

Later that night, on the drive home, he felt the familiar weight on his chest, felt the panic as the walls began to close in.

He was drowning again, but this time he didn’t mind so much.

This was his normal. Anything else would feel crushing, terribly, horribly wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> i impulse dyed my hair bright blue n im really regretting it


End file.
